<br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><i>Que Viva Mexico!, </i>filmed and directed by the famous Russian film master Sergei Eisenstein.<span> </span>Upton Sinclair heavily funded the project, but later he dropped his support when he felt that Eisenstein was basically using his money to take an extended vacation in Mexico while Sinclair was footing the bill.<span> </span>(Hart 18-19)<span> </span>Even though Eisenstein never completed the film, his co-director Grigory Alexandrov edited the (1932) reels and produced what he could in 1971 with Eisenstein’s original ideas from the filming in Mexico.<span> </span>(Hart 19)<span> </span>The film portrays a simplified story line of the Mexican revolution, broken down into the basic steps.<span> </span>The Russian producers used this to promote their own ides.<span> </span>The Communist ideology called for the workers in every country to revolt, which the Mexican Revolution was a prime example of this ideal come to life in 1910.<span> </span>(Meyer 419)<span> </span>Eisenstein and Alexandrov wanted to use this image of a successful revolution to attempt to show how it is similar to the Communist Party by enhancing the class warfare during the Mexican Revolution.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Even with the Communist ideologies inserted, the film was historically accurate Mexican history.<span> </span>At one point in the film, a soon to be married couple is brought to a hacienda for permission to marry, because she was once engaged before.<span> </span>During the event, she is raped by one of the men at the hacienda.<span> </span>Eisenstein and Alexandrov used this to show how the elite’s had power over the workers, power which they frequently abuse.<span> </span>It is, however, historically accurate that sexual abuse was a common event for young women at a hacienda.<span> </span>(Meyer 401)<span> </span>Soon after, the potential husband rises against the landowner and his men, but later the hacienda owner kills him and his compadres.<span> </span>This battle was used by Eisenstein once again to showcase class warfare.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">The great flaw with <i>Que Viva Mexico!</i> is that it silences the Mexican people, like many of their foreign relationships did before the 1910 revolution.<span> </span>The American, French, German, and English investors across Mexico were collecting all the benefits of the land without returning much back to the people who inhabit it.<span> </span>(Meyer 390)<span> </span>Eisenstein filmed his movie with the intent of his Communist ideology being expressed though the Mexican population just the same as other foreign investors to create a profit.<span> </span>Alexandrov narrates the entire film, without once acquiring the thoughts or words of the Mexican actors.<span> </span>In the end, the Communist ideology comes around when Alexandrov narrates that the land owning class will die out.<span> </span>(Hart 22)<span> </span>Even if his assumption is true, there is no mention of what the Mexican citizens feel or say because of the agenda of the narrator.<span> </span>Since Eisenstein did not actually process the narration, because he died prematurely, that may not had been his exact will for the film, but he did want to use the Mexicans to show the revolution that occurred due to class warfare in the 1910s.<span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Eisenstein’s film was historically accurate for what it did show, including the Mayan civilization and it’s architecture, life (including marriage and courtship), the famous bullfights in honor of the Holy Virgin of Guadalupe, and the celebration of the Day of the Dead.<span> </span>Furthermore, Eisenstein and Alexandrov used these events of Mexico to promote the Communist Ideology.<span> </span>By removing the voice of the Mexicans, they used the narration to convey their message to the Soviet rather than documenting the events of the recent Mexican Revolution and other cultural aspects of Mexican life.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/4519892394579927293-8871340403864538721?l=jeremiahglass.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>
